


Queer, in the old sense of the word

by Castillon02



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Fluff, M/M, occult october
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 18:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13195692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02
Summary: There’s always been something off about Q. Bond tries to figure him out.





	Queer, in the old sense of the word

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the MI6 Cafe's Occult October challenge

There’s always been something off about Q. Something queer, in the old sense of the word. (Well, and in the new sense of the word, too–the man’s as bent as a nine bob note.) But though Bond wracks his brain and goes through all of the human-adjacent possibilities, none of them match up.

Werewolf? Q’s not hairy enough, and there are no telltale signs of depilatory creams or procedures. Plus, Bond has seen him working on a night with a full moon.

Banshee? Bond’s heard him shout at a particularly incompetent tech, and there was nothing supernatural about it. (Q is also terribly, painfully surprised by 003′s death when it happens.)

Vampire? Dhampir? Bond takes Q out to lunch, and Q orders the garlic shrimp entree and insists on sitting at a table that gets the sunlight. When he laughs at something Bond’s said, his canines are all the usual length.

(To his surprise, Bond ends up laughing as well, when Q makes a witty remark and accompanies it with the perfect comically snide expression. When he laughs, Q makes a show of peering into his mouth, too, and winks at him.)

(Well, subtlety has never been Bond’s strong point.)

Q isn’t a siren–Bond catches him singing off-key to himself in Q Branch late at night. He’s nearly as graceful as a half-elf, but more than once he knocks a spanner off a workbench and Bond has to catch it for him, which rules that out. An elf would never act so unashamed of possible clumsiness.

When Bond takes him out for dinner and for a walk along the Thames, Q orders the steak instead of the fish, and while they’re walking he casts long looks at Bond instead of the water, so he’s probably not a selkie.

Q’s flat has no water features and no fireplace, and all the plants are half-chewed by his cats, so he’s not a nymph or elemental. He doesn’t carry a wand or wear a jewel-based channeling device, so he’s not a warlock either. (Or a witch, or wiz, or whatever the young people call them these days.)

And Q’s definitely not a zombie. No telltale scars, and he’s interested in eating things other than Bond’s brains.

***

Bond tucks the thought of Q’s not-quite-humanness away until he’s sent on a mission to kill a Czech warlock who’s masquerading as a therapist and brainwashing influential British subjects. Q’s given him a gorgeous sniper rifle–it’s always best to deal with warlocks from a distance–and Bond’s been assured that the bullet will make it through whatever defensive charms the warlock has on his windows.

The warlock sits in his study, poring over a thick book that Q would probably call a grimoire. His bat familiar perches on his shoulder, its wings fluttering occasionally. Possibly it’s reading along with him if the small movements of its head are anything to go by.

Bond takes aim from his spot on a nearby tree branch. He puts his finger on the trigger.

Inhale–-exhale–-inhale–-exhale–-

A click of the trigger.

A click of the trigger.

A click of the trigger.  

The first bullet shatters the entire window. The next bullet fragments the warlock’s skull. The third bullet, aimed at the bat, pierces the wall.

For just a moment, there’s a screaming, blood-spattered young woman where the bat had once been, and then the bat is back, diving through the air where the window used to be and flying towards Bond.

Bond stares. When he’d been trained on familiars, no one had mentioned human transformations.

“Best kill her,” Q’s voice says in his ear, jolting him out of it. “If you leave a familiar alive, nothing will stop their vengeance.”

It’s a fact Bond already knows, stated in an attempt at Q’s usual cool voice–but there’s a twinge there that gives Q away, and all the pieces of Q that Bond’s been puzzling over fall together in Bond’s mind.

“Oh,” he says, and manages to shoot the bat before it gets to him.

“Indeed,” Q says.

The bat stays bat-shaped when it dies. Just to be on the safe side, Bond beheads it before he buries it.

***

He returns his equipment late the next night. Q Branch is the same as ever: concrete and metal, the scent of motor oil, the hum of electric devices and the click-clack of Q’s typing. The fluorescents are off except on the far side of the branch, and the computer on Q’s desk casts a blue glow on Q’s face in the middle of the darkness.

As he approaches, Bond notices the cat basket behind Q’s desk and it dawns on him that although the basket is bent out of shape and covered in cat hair, he’s never once seen Locasta or Glenda, Q’s cats, in the branch.

“All in one piece,” Bond says, handing the rifle back to Q. And because he doesn’t like the uncertain set of Q’s shoulders or the tight clench of his jaw, he waits only until Q’s put the rifle down on the desk between them before he says, “I’m sorry for who you lost.”

Q’s eyes widen and he bows his head. “Thank you,” he says. His shoulders loosen a little.  

“Who was it?” Bond asks.

“It was M,” Q says, and he hesitates for just a moment before continuing on. “I got bored, you see, having to wait at home while she worked–it wasn’t politic to shove her witchiness in peoples’ faces at the time, so she couldn’t very well walk around with me at her heels. Since I couldn’t aid her in my original form any longer, I figured out a way to do it as a human.” A flash of pride crosses Q’s face. “She called me far too clever for my own good when I showed her my new trick, and she set me to work with Boothroyd right away.”  

“And you’re still around because your vengeance isn’t complete yet?” Bond asks. Familiars, which are energy constructs, tend to fade once they’ve taken their vengeance. Then again, they also tend to stay in the form of an animal.

“M always told me that if her killer died before I could get to him, then my best revenge would be living well,” Q says. “And making sure that Six is living well too, of course. I–erm, I like to think I’ve been doing a bit better with that first part, lately.” He gives Bond a small smile, his meaning plain.

Q isn’t about to die after completing some final kill, which is good. But along with that fear, a worry Bond hadn’t even known he was carrying dissolves into nothing. Q hasn’t somehow latched onto him supernaturally; he isn’t using him as a replacement for M, the witch he’s lost. Bond’s not essential to Q. Genius that he is, Q has figured out how to be a familiar who can exist for himself–for himself and for Six, that is. Rather like Bond.

So Q’s a little queer, in the ‘actually a shapeshifting magical construct rather than a born human’ sense of the word. So what? He’s also a person who’s devoted to Six. Who’s got eight extra lives, and practice in sidestepping death. Who makes weapons, and who knows how to use them. Who makes Bond laugh. Who wants Bond just for who Bond is, not to ensure his own survival.  

No, he and Q aren’t magically tied together. He just…makes Q’s life better.

Just like Q makes his life better.  

“Living well does seem to be easier together,” Bond says. He holds a hand out to Q, smiling back at him. “Now, how about we go have your revenge somewhere that isn’t here?”  

***

Bond blinks awake the next morning as a weight settles on his chest, and a moment later the deep rumbling of a purring cat fills the room. They’re in Bond’s flat, so it’s not Locasta or Glenda. Instead, a big, midnight black beast with half-lidded green eyes peers down at him. “Don’t think I’m going to get up to feed you,” Bond mumbles, just as Q does to his cats when they sneak into the bedroom early in the morning.

Q only purrs harder, and blinks at him slowly.

Black cats are bad luck, Bond thinks. But then, so are 00s. Underneath Q’s purring, black-cat-bad-luck body, Bond feels warm and pleasantly heavy-limbed, and safer than he has in ages.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 Constructive criticism is welcome.


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